Divorce Coach Shares 4 Reasons Women Are Happier Than Men After A Marriage Ends
Divorce doesn't always equal heartbreak.
kitzcorner / Shutterstock During any major life change, a fluctuation in mood is to be expected. After all, humans are creatures of habit, and shifting our well-established routines is never easy.
Yet one change in particular seems to benefit women more than men, in that they report a greater sense of overall satisfaction with their lives after getting divorced.
A research study out of Kingston University in London surveyed 10,000 people from ages 16 to 60 over twenty years, asking them to rate their levels of happiness before and after major milestones in their lives.
Divorced women reported feeling significantly happier than even their baseline level of happiness, for up to five years after ending their marriages.
Here are 4 reasons women are happier than men after a divorce, according to a divorce coach:
1. Women are more likely to get into therapy
Leah Marie Mazur is a divorce coach who specializes in helping people recover after the upheaval caused by ending a marriage. In a recent TikTok, she referenced the Kingston University study, which found that women are more likely than men to seek professional support for emotional traumas during the divorce process.
This could be based on the various stigmas that surround mental health struggles. In a world where men are told that expressing their emotions makes them weak, they might hesitate to process whatever pain they’re experiencing.
Mazur highlighted how asking for help after a divorce is an act of self-care and love. “Not reaching out for support prolongs your suffering,” she added.
Photo: Ground Picture / Shutterstock
Men are taught not to be vulnerable, yet ignoring or tamping down their emotions only creates more damage.
2. Women surround themselves with support
Women build positive support networks in their post-divorce lives. Aside from therapeutic support, these emotional safety nets include cultivating relationships with people who have similar lived experiences.
Women who’ve gotten divorced are more likely to lean on the people who love them, asking for help when needed.
Again, this disparity plays into the rigidly gendered idea that men shouldn’t reveal their vulnerability. Getting divorced is a huge shift, and not only because it affects your relationship status. Divorce changes every aspect of a person’s daily routine: Where they call home, how they cook dinner, and the ways they spend their time.
The practical fallout from a divorce can hurt as much as the emotional aspects of ending a marriage.
Having friends to decompress with, vent to, or lean on are all ways to heal. By putting effort into other relationships that nourish them, women set themselves up with the support they need to move forward.
3. Women turn to substances less often than men
Mazur shared another part of the Kingston study which found that women turn to substances, like drugs or alcohol, less often than men do.
A 2017 research paper published in The Journal of American Epidemiology looked into the link between divorce and drug abuse. The authors noted that rates of drug abuse are higher among people who are divorced than those who are married.
In evaluating the ties between divorce and substance abuse, the study determined that divorce is “a potent risk factor” for drug use, with the risk being “significantly worse” for men than women.
Coping with all of the emotional fallout after a divorce is never an easy road to go down, which is why asking for help is such a healing salve.
4. Women prioritize their emotional needs more than men
After a divorce, women are more likely to look for experiences that enrich their lives than men. Taking part in activities that fulfill you are crucial to the healing process.
A professor at Kingston University, Yannis Georgellis, reported that even though divorce can have a negative financial impact on women, it still makes them significantly happier than men.
"One possible explanation could be that women who enter into an unhappy marriage feel much more liberated after divorce than their male counterparts,” Georgellis said.
While many complicated factors can lead to divorce, it’s important to note that even in our modern age, marriages between men and women aren’t designed equally, especially when it comes to household labor. When women become wives, they do seven extra hours of housework a week, which could account for the feeling of liberation that divorce brings.
Divorce is nothing to feel shame about, yet it’s often framed as a failure.
The breakdown of a marriage has more to do with the incompatibility of a couple than the moral or spiritual failing of either person involved.
Yet the fact that divorced women tend to be happier than divorced men speaks volumes about the shortcomings of systems like marriage, which still appear to be structured in ways that hurt women’s well-being.
Alexandra Blogier is a writer on YourTango's news and entertainment team. She covers social issues, pop culture and all things to do with the entertainment industry.